Published on Monday, 6 January 2025 at 12:22:31 PM
About the trial
The FEEDBACK trial aims to investigate the extent to which personalised safety feedback combined with a financial incentive can reduce motor vehicle crashes among novice drivers. This trial builds on previous research showing that feedback and incentives can reduce important indicators of crash risk, like speeding, harsh braking and acceleration, and drowsy driving. The trial will assess whether young drivers in New South Wales, Western Australia, Victoria, and Queensland show improvements in driving behaviour due to personalised driver safety feedback and financial incentives provided over the course of a 28-week period.
Personalised safety feedback
The personalised safety feedback will be generated using telematics data such as speeding, acceleration, braking captured via a smartphone app paired to the driver’s vehicle via Bluetooth. The feedback will be provided as a DrivePoints score that can be viewed in the smartphone app showing if the driving behaviour was safe, some at-risk or at-risk. Furthermore, feedback will also be provided via SMS messaging each month indicating a “safe-driving-target" to achieve in that month to receive a financial incentive for safe driving behaviour.
Sample size and eligibility
The sample size required for this trial involve 3,068 participants. Allowing for a 15% non-response rate, 1,805 participants are needed from each of the three participating states, for a total of 3,610 participants recruited. The number of participants across states does not need to be evenly distributed.
To be eligible for participation, participants must:
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Be 18-20 years of age when joining the trial
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Hold a provisional (P1) licence for a car
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Live in NSW, QLD, VIC, or WA
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Have access to a vehicle that they drive regularly
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Have an iOS or Android smartphone
What participants will be asked to do
The trial is a total of 28 weeks, consisting of a baseline period (4 weeks), intervention period (20 weeks), and a post-intervention period (4 weeks).
The following diagram shows an overview of the FEEDBACK trial and what participants will experience at each stage of the trial.
To join the trial, participants will follow a link to read the online plain language statement, sign a consent form, and complete a pre-trial questionnaire. The questionnaire takes about 10 minutes to complete and asks participants questions about their demographic characteristics and attitudes towards driving. The questionnaire will also ask participants for their licence numbers so that FEEDBACK trial staff can access information on whether participants were involved in a police-reported crash during the trial.
Participants will then receive a link to download the DrivePoints smartphone app and enable location services for the app. The app can then use the in-built sensors of the mobile device to track driving patterns such as speeding, braking.
Baseline period
During the 4-week initial baseline, participants will drive as they normally would whilst the DrivePoints app tracks their behaviour. From this point onwards, the app will be able to calculate a DrivePoints score for each driver based on the aforementioned crash risk events like speeding and harsh braking. However, the app will not display any of this information during this period.
Intervention period
After the baseline, participants will be randomised into either the intervention group or the control group for the 20-week intervention period. The intervention group will receive personalised feedback linked to financial incentives. Intervention participants will receive a monthly SMS containing their DrivePoints score for the month, a target score that they should aim to achieve for the month (based on the previous month’s score), and information on their safe driving account. The safe driving account is a virtual account with a balance of $120 to begin with – each month, if a participant fails to meet their target score, they will lose $24 from this account. Although this is a virtual account during the trial period, at the end of the trial (28-weeks) the balance from the $120 will be deposited to the participant’s nominated bank account. On a weekly basis, participants will receive driving feedback via SMS based on their driving score for the previous week.
Both the intervention and control groups will also be entered into a weekly draw for a $100 Uber Eats voucher. All participants will receive a weekly SMS announcing where that week’s winner was located (i.e., State), and reminding them to keep location services enabled for the app in order to be eligible for the following week’s prize.
The differences in the intervention and control groups are briefly outlined below:
Post-intervention
In the 4-week post-intervention period, participants will no longer receive personalised feedback. Intervention group participants will thus no longer risk deductions from their safe driving accounts. All participants will be sent a link to complete the post-trial questionnaire. At the end of the 4-week post-intervention, and thus the completion of the 28-week trial, intervention group participants will receive the remaining funds from their safe driving accounts.
More information
This trial is conducted in collaboration with The University of Melbourne, University of Western Australia, Queensland University of Technology and Monash University. The Transport Accident Commission VIC and the Departments of Transport of NSW, WA and QLD are partners in this trial.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact:
Maneesha Perera (maneesha.perera1@unimelb.edu.au) or
Avita Streatfield (avita.streatfield@unimelb.edu.au)
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